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Title: Growth of graphene underlayers by chemical vapor deposition

Journal Article · · AIP Advances
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4834975· OSTI ID:22251376
; ; ; ; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Department of Physics, Institute of Applied Materials, SARChI Chair in Carbon Technology and Materials, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0028 (South Africa)
  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 (United States)

We present a simple and very convincing approach to visualizing that subsequent layers of graphene grow between the existing monolayer graphene and the copper catalyst in chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Graphene samples were grown by CVD and then transferred onto glass substrates by the bubbling method in two ways, either direct-transfer (DT) to yield poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/graphene/glass or (2) inverted transfer (IT) to yield graphene/PMMA/glass. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to reveal surface features for both the DT and IT samples. The results from FE-SEM and AFM topographic analyses of the surfaces revealed the underlayer growth of subsequent layers. The subsequent layers in the IT samples are visualized as 3D structures, where the smaller graphene layers lie above the larger layers stacked in a concentric manner. The results support the formation of the so-called “inverted wedding cake” stacking in multilayer graphene growth.

OSTI ID:
22251376
Journal Information:
AIP Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 11; Other Information: (c) 2013 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2158-3226
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English